Deep FieldThe Impossible Magnitude of our Universe

The first-ever outdoor screening of Deep Field will take place at the World Science Festival in New York on June 1, 2019. In the stunning surrounds of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Eric will introduce the film which will be accompanied by live singers from the LaGuardia High School Senior Chorus. The audience will then have the… continued

SciArt Exchange is calling on the next generation of space explorers! If you’re between the ages of 10-18 years old worldwide, help shape ideas for the future of space exploration by creating and sharing your musical, literary, visual or video art. Entries are due May 15. Find out more at humansinspaceart.org.

@NASAHubble is launching a new 6-part mini-series on Instagram about the tools used on Hubble’s servicing missions. Hubble was uniquely designed to be servicwed in space so that components could be repaired and upgraded. Astronauts performed challenging spacewalks on five servicing missions from 1993 to 2009 to keep Hubble operating so that it could change… continued

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the centre… continued

Pi or π is most commonly rounded to 3.14, making March 14 the happy occasion of Pi Day. Here are some facts about this mysterious and irrational number: Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference (measurement around the edge) and its diameter (measurement straight across). The symbol, π, is the Greek letter for ‘P’…. continued

“Voices from 120 countries unite in one of the most powerful moments in composer Eric Whitacre’s film Deep Field. After the viewer travels through the cosmos via a stunning array of Hubble Space Telescope images, the time comes to return to Earth. At that moment, 8,000 voices ring out above Whitacre’s moving orchestra music. They represent… continued

February 8 marks the birthday of Dmitri Mendelejev (born Feb 8, 1834) – the father of the Periodic Table. The formation of the elements began about 14 billion years ago in the early minutes of the Big Bang. After about 20 minutes, the ordinary matter in the Universe was a mixture hydrogen, helium, and electrons,… continued

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a magnificent spiral galaxy that has been studied across the spectrum by NASA’s Great Observatories. This remarkable video uses two dimensional images and three dimensional visualizations to contrast and compare the different views of infrared (Spitzer Space Telescope), visible (Hubble Space Telescope), and X-ray (Chandra X-ray Observatory) observations. Within these spectral… continued

Eric Whitacre will present Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of our Universe as part of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts ‘Vibrations’ series in the 60th anniversary year of Woodstock Festival. With an emphasis on the value of the arts and civic engagement, the Vibrations series was created to open conversations, inspire thinking and… continued

In December of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to leave our home planet and travel to another body in space. But as crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders all later recalled, the most important thing they discovered was Earth. Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar… continued

The James Webb Space Telescope will not orbit the Earth like Hubble but will in fact orbit the Sun. It will travel for approximately 30 days before reaching what is known as the second Lagrange point, or L2, 1 million miles away. The orbit around this specific point in space will ensure that the telescope… continued

The new film – Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of our Universe – illuminates Eric’s score by combining Hubble’s stunning imagery, including never-seen-before galaxy fly-bys, with bespoke animations to create an immersive, unforgettable journey from planet Earth to the furthest edges of our universe. Joining the incredible musicians of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Eric Whitacre Singers… continued

“It will be a close encounter of an unprecedented kind with 8,000 singers, an orchestra and images of galaxies never before seen.” The Times has posted a feature ahead of the release of Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of the Universe. Read now on thetimes.co.uk or pick up a copy in your local store.

The Deep Field film and soundtrack are now available to pre-order from iTunes and Apple Music. Created especially for Apple, the special package includes the Ultra High Definition (4k) film: “Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of our Universe”, the soundtrack featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Eric Whitacre Singers and Virtual Choir 5 and an… continued

After nine years in deep space collecting data that indicate our sky to be filled with billions of hidden planets – more planets even than stars – NASA’s Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel needed for further science operations. NASA has decided to retire the spacecraft within its current, safe orbit, away from… continued

NASA have confirmed that the Hubble Space Telescope is back in action following a gyroscope problem and a three-week hiatus. Hubble’s first bounce-back science work, which wrapped up early Saturday morning, involved infrared-light observations of the star-forming galaxy DSF2237B-1-IR with the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, NASA officials added. For more information, visit Space.com.

Check out this interactive exhibit from Cooper Hewitt: “The growing field of sound design gives an audible voice to products, brands, and interfaces. Through sound, our digital devices and products tell us when we have completed a task, received a message, or achieved a goal. Now imagine this world of products with no sound—no chimes,… continued

The Webb telescope will travel 1 million miles from earth and look back over 13.5 billion years, providing images of the first galaxies formed and observing unexplored planets around distant stars. The breakthrough technology developed for the Webb Telescope will expand our understanding of the universe, rewrite textbooks and inspire a future generation of engineers… continued

The BBC and Playlist for Life have collaborated to create a new website, launched today as part of BBC Music Day, designed to help people with dementia reconnect with their most powerful memories: BBC Music Memories. The site hosts a database of tracks that can be curated into playlists, tagged with basic personal information, such… continued

Dr. Robert Williams, former Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, has published a new account of the Hubble Space Telescope story and its revelations, aimed at amateur astronomers, science historians, researches and students interested in science. The eBook (and print edition) can be purchased through Amazon, or accessed via IOPscience if your institution or… continued

NASA is working to resume science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope after the spacecraft entered safe mode on Friday, October 5, 2018, shortly after 6:00 p.m. EDT. Hubble’s instruments still are fully operational and are expected to produce excellent science for years to come. Hubble entered safe mode after one of the three gyroscopes… continued

NASA has collated thirteen topics that the Hubble Space Telescope has contributed to over nearly three decades, complete with stunning imagery. Explore Dark Matter, worlds beyond the Milky Way and even monster black holes on their dedicated website, as well as in a downloadable booklet.

The first private passenger flight to circumnavigate the Moon has been announced by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, expected to launch in 2023. The passengers, headed up by Japanese entrepreneur Yusaka Maewaza, will also include up to eight artists from across the disciplines. Maewaza will be Host Curator for the resulting exhibition of art and ideas… continued

Take a look inside this 3D scan of the Apollo 11 Command Module “Columbia”, which was created by the Smithsonian Institute to mark the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission, which took Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. The three astronauts lived in Columbia during their time in space on… continued

Fak’ugesi is a digital innovation festival held in the creative hub of Braamfontein, Johannesburg in South Africa which runs across August and September. The festival includes workshops, events, talks and conferences that showcase technology and art as well as residencies and an exhibition for featured artists from Africa, India and Europe. This and prior years’ festivals have featured… continued

Over the past 20 years, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium have been collecting data from scientists and a number of organizations to create a detailed 3D model of our Universe. The project was developed with support from NASA and brings together disparate data sets to create a unified model of space that is constantly being updated as scientific… continued

Hubble’s jaw-dropping views of far-flung planets, nebulas, and galaxies have redefined the universe for whole new generations. Nearly all of Hubble’s dazzling images have been prepared with the skills of Zoltan Levay, in the STScI Office of Public Outreach. Levay is retiring now to pursue his hobby of photography on a more earth-bound plane…

The universe is a huge place, inconceivably vast. And it can make even the most brilliant minds feel very, very small. Yet NASA’s very own Michelle Thaller thinks that we can use this to our advantage, by finding “that balance between being part of everything, and being so brief, or almost nothing. Watch Michelle discuss… continued

Astronomers have just assembled one of the most comprehensive portraits yet of the universe’s evolutionary history, based on a broad spectrum of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and other space and ground-based telescopes…

NASA has turned to music to rouse the sleeping Rover on Mars. Over 2 months ago, a Martian dust storm thwarted the amount of sunlight available to NASA’s Opportunity Rover to charge its solar batteries, which sent it to sleep. To maintain morale in the control room, NASA mission staff now play a daily ‘alarm’,… continued

teamLab is an art collective that seeks to “navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, design and the natural world.” Check out their digital exhibitions, which immerse the viewer in mesmerising, other-worldly settings of light and colour and use technology to push the boundaries of how we experience art. One of their current exhibitions, teamLab… continued

Take a look at some of the most beautifully-designed and imaginative pedestrian bridges that have been built around the world. This Guardian article showcases some of the most stunning pedestrian bridges in the world, illustrating what can happen when artists, designers, architects and engineers work together to create something beautiful. Human creativity in design, engineering… continued

On August 11, NASA is planning to launch the Parker Solar Probe which is expected to fly closer to the sun than any spacecraft built by humans. Roughly the size of a car, Parker will be humankind’s first spacecraft to fly into the low solar corona and will have to cope with temperatures of almost… continued

Cosmic Watch is an interactive tool that lets you view the Earth, solar system and celestial sphere from your hometown, all rendered in stunning 3D graphics, The Cosmic Watch app isn’t just a beautiful clock, but also an astronomical instrument that lets the user view the cycles of Earth, the solar system and the celestial… continued

Featuring 120 video projectors and spatial discrete audio, L’Atelier des Lumières is Paris’ stunning new digital art center. The center opened its doors to the public in April this year, offering visitors a stunning immersive digital art experience. Set in a former cast-iron foundry, the three inaugural exhibitions are Klimt (an immersive exhibition), Hundertwasser (a… continued

More than 28 years after it was launched, the Hubble Space Telescope continues to contribute to our understanding of space and our own solar system. Over the past couple of months, Hubble has photographed both Mars and Saturn as they make their near-closest approaches to Earth. On June 6, Hubble captured images of Saturn when… continued

On Saturday July 21, thousands of singers assembled in Disney Hall and five satellite locations across the state for LA Master Chorale’s Big Sing California. Hosted by Eric Whitacre, the LAMC and 2,000 audience singers at Walt Disney Concert Hall were broadcasted live to five California satellite venues where choirs assembled and sang together in… continued

Build a launcher to project a ball as far as possible, with enough accuracy to hit your target! Have a go at this fun engineering challenge, which asks participants to build a launcher capable of projecting a ball into a “receiver” using only commonly-found materials. Test your prowess solo or against your friends as part… continued

Digital design, art, music and history come together in this spectacular curtain raiser for the BBC Proms. Check out Five Telegrams, featuring visuals projected onto the exterior of the Royal Albert Hall by the award-winning team at 59 Productions, with new music written by Anna Meredith as the soundtrack. In the centenary year of the… continued

On the night of the July 27-28, certain parts of the world will witness the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century. The total phase of the eclipse will last 1 hour 42 minutes and 57 seconds. Before and after this period, there will be a partial eclipse, each lasting 1 hour and 6… continued

Are we moving closer to discovering extra-terrestrial life? Scientists have uncovered what they believe to be a lake of liquid water on Mars. Researchers have found evidence of what they believe to be a liquid lake of water on Mars, measuring about 20km (12 miles) across. The lake sits under the planet’s southern polar ice… continued

NASA’s flagship X-ray telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, was launched on July 23, 1999 and is celebrating its 19th birthday today! Chandra is an orbiting telescope designed to detect X-ray emission from very hot regions of the Universe such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes.

Over 100 years ago, artists and artist-scientists were working on theories of colour that paved the road for the TV, computer and mobile screens we use today. The RGB color model makes use the fact that adding together red, green and blue light in various combinations can create a broad spectrum of colours. This model is employed in the OLED, plasma and LCD electronic screens that billions of people around the world use today.

“I worked at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) project during the years 1991-2002. I was hired as a software team lead and eventually became a project manager and Deputy Division Head for 140+ engineers and scientists developing and maintaining the ground system for HST. I thoroughly enjoyed working on this… continued

Unleash your creativity and create some beautiful flowers using the scientific technique of chromatography. Using only filter paper, coloured marker pens, water, scissors, small coins and a cup you can create some gorgeous chromatography flowers. Try different techniques, patterns and colours to let your inner creative self run wild! Take a look at the site… continued

Worried about the devastating impact that an asteroid could have on our planet? Fear no more – Asteroid Day is here and is raising awareness about asteroids and what can be done to protect earth. Asteroid day began in 2015 and brings together asteroid experts with a large community of concerned citizens. Founded by Dr… continued

Over the past few hours, we’ve been overwhelmed with people requesting an extension to the Virtual Choir 5 deadline. As a consequence, we are extending the deadline to allow you a final weekend to record your videos. All videos must be submitted by July 1, 2018 at 11:59pm PT – this Sunday. Please know that… continued

Have you met other members of the VC5 Community in the Forum yet? In signing up to Virtual Choir 5, you are joining a truly global community. Right now, 113 countries are represented from all but one continent. We have astronauts, astrophysicists and scientists within the community. We have choral superstars, The King’s Singers. We… continued

Using tape and up to 20 straws, design a 25cm bridge that can support as many pennies as possible. Perfect for those budding engineers among you… This fun challenge will put your design and engineering skills to the test! Using only tape and up to 20 straws, you must design a bridge that can span… continued

Origami, the ancient Japanese art of paper folding, is being used in pioneering Graphene research, the new “wonder material”. Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms linked together in one layer and is prized for its variety of “wonder properties” – it’s the strongest material ever studied and is a powerful electrical conductor.

We strive to make sure our Virtual Choirs can connect singers from all over the world and Virtual Choir 5: Deep Field aims to reach the widest audience yet. However, creating the Virtual Choir and the Deep Field film is an expensive undertaking and we rely on financial support from a number of sponsors and… continued

In a time when women were discouraged from studying math and science, Nancy Grace Roman became a research astronomer and the first Chief of Astronomy at NASA. Known today as the “Mother of Hubble,” she was instrumental in taking the Hubble Space Telescope from an idea to reality and establishing NASA’s program of space-based astronomical observatories.

This visualization explores the Orion Nebula using both visible-light observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and infrared-light observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The contrast between visible and infrared views of the nebula are examined using two spatially matched three-dimensional models…

Listen to Eric’s recent interview on BBC Radio 4’s The Digital Human series. The series explores different aspects of living in the digital world and the theme of this episode is Joy. The episode can be streamed online or downloaded as a podcast.

Over the past couple of weeks, the creative teams at the Space Telescope Science Institute, 59 Productions and Team Eric have met in order to decide upon the key imagery to be used in the Deep Field film. Despite the wealth of imagery that the Hubble Space Telescope has captured, the decision was made to… continued

The clearest way to define distance is as “the amount of space between two points.” But how far is far? This short video compares distances from the very small to the very far, from the distance between gravitational waves to the distance to some of the farthest galaxies.

Have you subscribed to any of NASA’s podcast series yet? Topics include human spaceflight, top discoveries in space science, the mysteries of the universe and all the cool people who work at NASA to push the boundaries of innovation. Visit NASA.gov to find out more and subscribe.

So we’re about 48 hours into this glorious endeavor. Many of you have been busy earning your badges, experimenting with the video recorder and some singers have already submitted. Cool! But we’re guessing quite a few people will be making their recordings this weekend so we thought it would be helpful to share some tips… continued

Hi everyone, What an amazing first 24 hours of Virtual Choir 5. We have been blown away by the response and are thrilled to let you know that over 6,000 people from over 90 countries across the world have signed up to VC5 in just one day. We’re loving seeing how many of you have… continued

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art & design and math) recognizes that creative thinking and art & design (the “A” of STEAM) are at the heart of innovation and problem solving. The belief in STEAM for 21st century innovation is based on a number of points: STEAM is the future of real world problem solving: STEAM says… continued

Creating a Virtual Choir project on this scale takes goodwill, commitment and creativity from a large number of people so we thought where better to start the Project Blog than with those who have made the Deep Field project possible so far.

Explore an interactive view of the universe with this online tool. Google Sky lets the user view infrared and microwave visuals over the images of space. One cool feature is the “Historical” map overlay, where you can see a 1792 celestial map of the globe by Giovanni Cassini overlaid on the actual images of the universe…. continued